Feminist. Anti-feminist. Non-feminist. What do these words really mean and how do their meanings differ? How do they act upon each other?
Very well, feminist means feminist. That’s easy enough. And non-feminist means not feminist. Again, easy enough. Now let’s look at anti-feminist. This word simply means “opposed to feminism”. That is all. And if you are opposed to feminism, it’s a pretty safe bet that you are also not a feminist. I mean, when was the last time you met a feminist who was opposed to feminism?
So clearly, if you are anti-feminist, you must also be not a feminist. You have no choice. It is logically excluded that you could be anything else. Therefore, every anti-feminist you meet is also non-feminist.
But is every non-feminist anti-feminist?
I will offer up a novel viewpoint. I say yes; every non-feminist is anti-feminist, because whoever is not a feminist effectively opposes feminism.
That’s right: in principle, both anti-feminist and non-feminist oppose feminism.
The non-feminist principle opposes feminism passively. This is good because the passive mode is politically efficient in its season. The anti-feminist principle opposes feminism actively. This is good because the active mode is also politically efficient in its season. Each modality is politically efficient in its season.
So a non-feminist person is no less anti-feminist simply for opposing feminism passively, than an anti-feminist is for opposing it actively. By the end of the day, all that matters is that they both put a drag weight on feminism in effectual terms.
To phrase that differently, both non-feminist and anti-feminist exist in opposition to feminism. So the real issue is existential. “Non-feminist” carries the same political weight as “anti-feminist” because all opposition to feminism has the same existential value. It all interferes with feminism by roadblocking it in some way. It all poses an impediment to feminist plans.
By the end of the day, “anti-feminist” is simply a type of non-feminist. A sub-variety or sub-category. The difference is, that anti-feminist seems to imply something actively adversarial, whereas non-feminist seems to imply “live and let live”.
I say “seems to imply”. However, there is a kicker: live and let live only works if it is a two-way street, and feminism is decidely “my way or the highway”. No two ways about that! Feminism innately lacks the capacity to live and let live, and to merely require such a thing puts feminism under strain.
To tolerate even one inch of space in this world that is not feminist, is to allow in principle that people and things which are not feminist have a right to be in this world in the first place. That they have a right to existence. Such tolerance throws the entire feminist project into question because it radically undermines the basis of feminist triumphalism. (In case you didn’t catch it yet,, feminist triumphalism is the idea that feminism is categorically and objectively right, beyond all further discussion, for all time.)
So no, feminism cannot live and let live alongside the non-feminist sector. Feminism’s drive is to make feminism the only game in town — and clearly, to permit a different game to exist in town at all, would nullify that purpose.
You might wonder, “what’s the point of being “non-feminist”, anyway? If you oppose feminism, why not just announce your anti-feminism and be done with it?”
Before we answer, we should make one thing clear. There is a chasm of difference between non-feminists who do not openly self-label as anti-feminist, and political numpties who very pointedly say, “I am non-feminist but not anti-feminist”. The former might be smooth, intelligent operators who understand the base dynamic, but the latter, who pointedly reject anti-feminism by name, are missing the plot altogether. They are simply a nuisance, and should straightway declare themselves feminist, because feminism is the master they are serving. They contain no principle of resistance to feminist innovation, not even the passive-aggressive option. They lack political backbone because, not being “anti”, they can do no better than roll over every time the feminists roll out a new plan. We like to give names to things, and so we call these people “rolling- stock”. If we are feeling less charitable, we call them “rolling puppies”.
Back to our question. I would reply that when you adopt an anti-feminist standpoint, you adopt an adversarial stance, toward feminism, that might be construed as aggressional.
Now, we all know that feminism is the primary or predominant aggressor. We all know that feminism initiated this war the minute it came into existence and started lying and slandering. We all know that non-feminist men and women are punching “up” and that feminism, the bully, is punching “down”.
Think a bit. Feminism as we know it is historically recent. Non-feminist men and women have been around, let us say, forever. They have enacted their various roles, as saints or sinners upon the stage of life, and practiced moral adjudication upon each other according to their own terms. (Non-feminist terms, obviously.) They got along fine without feminism, for thousands of years, and they don’t need feminism now. Most importantly of all, non-feminist people did not start this war. Did “non-feminists” rise up from the field one day out of the blue, and commence to rip-snorting around, and waving their banner, and telling everybody else what reality is, and radically tinkering with the world without consulting that very same world first? No. “Non-feminism” didn’t do these things. Feminism did. In fact, non-feminist people didn’t even know that they were non-feminist until feminism came along. They were a group that never knew it was a group, and many of them still don’t realize that they are a group.
So again, feminism was the original aggressor, and remains the primary aggressor to this day. Yet they are superlatively clever at playing the victim, mostly by spin control. Oh lord, how they have bamboozled us! They have crafted this into something like a martial art. When a conflict arises they will flip the script and make it a threat narrative — they will become the victim and the other side will be made the aggressor even if the truth is exactly opposite. This is one of the games people play on a personal level, but the genius of feminism was to make it political.
The non-feminist position undermines their game because it forces them to back off and leave you alone or, barring that, do something overtly aggressive that will give them a bad look. So this is elegantly simple: we are setting up the feminists so that they cannot play the victim, and if feminists cannot play the victim then feminism cannot effectively operate any longer. Finis!
They are NOT accustomed to living in a script where they are the aggressor — in other words, a script they didn’t write. All you must do is frankly state that you are not a feminist and ask that your non-feminist boundaries be respected. How simple is that? You just want to live a peaceable life along with other non-feminist people, and you don’t want any feminist headaches.
If you are a feminist and you persist in giving non-feminist people trouble, those people will band together to converse about the Feminist Problem, and finally make plans to do something about it.
So feminist, don’t be the problem. Don’t be the aggressor. Learn to co-exist. Share the world with the rest of the world. Most of all, understand that feminism is not the world and never will be.
That is heavy. That is loaded. Let the ripe significance sink in and saturate every fibre of your understanding all the way down.
Only feminists say “anti-feminism” like it’s a bad thing — that is what makes them feminist. Yet only feminists can prevent anti-feminism, by not driving people to be anti-feminist in the first place.
